Flying Squid Extend Territory To Oregon El Nino Adds To Catch Of Nw Fishing Boats

At night, when fishing trawlers turn on their deck lights, hundreds or even thousands of the big reddish-brown squid gather around, voracious jet-propelled feeders darting here and there after tiny bait fish, putting on a show for the fishermen who lean over the rail.

“They can go forward, backward … just like a streak of lightning,” says Tom Leach, a longtime Coos Bay trawl fisherman who has been returning to shore with 500 to 1,000 pounds of squid.

In 35 years of fishing in Oregon waters, Leach had never seen the Humboldt flying squid, so named because of its ability to skip across the surface of the water. But thanks to El Nino, the ocean-warming phenomenon that has caused oddities throughout the globe, the “flying” squid are thriving off Oregon’s coast.

“The books say these squid are not known to occur north of 35 degrees north latitude, about San Francisco,” says Neil Richmond, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist in Charleston.

The squid, averaging about 3 feet long and 5 to 10 pounds, live throughout the world, he says, but those showing up in Oregon are apparently part of an open-ocean population normally stretching as far south as Chile. Warmer waters have pushed much of that population farther north than ever before, he says.

“For these squid to drift onto the continental shelf in this part of the world I believe is unheard of,” Richmond says.

They started showing up in midwater and bottom trawl nets in September, and catches are still running strong - especially in the Coos Bay area. At first, fishermen didn’t know what to do with the squid, and some threw them back.

Eating these ugly creatures never occurred to some, but others eagerly cooked them up as calamari steaks and strips.

Although some boats have unloaded as much as 4,000 pounds, the fish plant typically is only buying 5,000 to 10,000 pounds a week. Adams has found markets in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and even Charleston’s Portside Restaurant, where chef Alex Laygui says the fresh calamari is a welcome addition to the menu.

The tentacled creature is also a welcome addition to the holds of trawlers such as Leach’s Jamie K.

“It’s making us extra money,” he says.

Richmond says the squid probably will remain at least through midwinter, feeding on increased populations of a small fish called saury, also an apparent result of El Nino.